The COMPLEAT Broadcasts, Chapter 1 Print section

This is a free podcast/post series of Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT

For reviews regarding this work, go here.

You may subscribe to this series via RSS here. https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/232444.rss

On Spotify

YouTube Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCjME-3m5B3EcKIBXOSrigYm5jzmcp8tt

Apple podcasts

PocketCast

https://pca.st/6y3b59mq

iHeart

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-joseph-mathenys-art-is-war-107824877/

Pocast Addict

https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/joseph-matheny-s-art-is-war-talks/4223678

and most other podcast outlets.

Or you can just receive them through this Substack.

You get the picture.

Twice a month, I will publish, in order, a chapter of the book and the corresponding discussion audio.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a multidisciplinary work: the text is one part, the audio is another, and the links within the text add a different dimension. Sequoyah and I discuss it in depth, including how I intended people to experience this design. Here’s a video of that discussion:

For reviews regarding this work, go here.

The COMPLEAT Broadcasts

Chapter 0

Mycellium Parish News 2025’

Received my ‘Mycellium Parish News 2025’ in the mail. Great zine and I highly recommend it. @rawilson23.bsky.social published a review on their site, so go check that out. Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT received a very kind and generous review in this issue.

The Why Files Basement

The Why Files Basement gave me a momento of my appearance recently. Will post a link when it airs. Not sure if this means I’m in WF Anonymous or not. 😜 Seriously though, great bunch of people, doing a fantastic indie project that has traction. Fare thee well!

Playlist of YouTube videos about Ong’s Hat

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCjME-3m5B3GbDXmAUQ9qddYqgCT_litc&si=Cxp3nVlXVziqBdy3

It’s been on my mind to do this for a while. So, I’m just going to do it.

This is the beginning of a free podcast/post series of Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT

Here is the text segment from the first chapter, with a bonus intro by David Metcalfe that was previously included only in the print version.

You may subscribe to this series via RSS here. https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/232444.rss

On Spotify

YouTube Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCjME-3m5B3EcKIBXOSrigYm5jzmcp8tt

Apple podcasts

PocketCast

https://pca.st/6y3b59mq

iHeart

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-joseph-mathenys-art-is-war-107824877/

Pocast Addict

https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/joseph-matheny-s-art-is-war-talks/4223678

and most other podcast outlets.

Or you can just receive them through this Substack.

You get the picture.

Twice a month, I will publish, in order, a chapter of the book and the corresponding discussion audio. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a multidisciplinary work: the text is one part, the audio is another, and the links within the text add a different dimension. Sequoyah and I discuss it in depth, including how I intended people to experience this design. Here’s a video of that discussion:

I hope you enjoy this free experiment and know that it was made possible by those who bought the print/audio or combo. If you’d like to donate some change to thank us for the tremendous effort it took to produce 14 hours of audio and all the linked print for this project, feel free to buy the audio files on Bandcamp or the print or digital versions of the books. If you can’t afford it, that’s ok. The people who bought the work this year and last year covered for you. Kinda like a “pay it forward” model.

Be well and enjoy.

Why Files: Basement

Well, “Why Files: Basement” got back to me and offered to accommodate my schedule, so how could I say no? Flying out to Vegas at the end of the month to record an episode. I’ll post the air date when I have it. This will be the last interview I will do for at least a few years. Here are some other episodes for your dancing and dining pleasure in the meantime. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaEJLf99gDO6BOvkVJ1aRGfPZlBFqu9r3&si=UUbN_FOvO0yYtri_

Thee Third Mind

Website: https://the-third-mind.haawke.com/

My old friend, Craig Ellenwood, AKA XKP of PTV, contacted me about an experiment he is doing, using the Third Mind principles, as practiced by Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs. If you’ve engaged with Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT, you know the Third Mind work had a huge influence on me and was a major source of inspiration for the experiments recorded in COMPLEAT. I believe this is the kind of work that LLMs might be good for. An exploration of creative landscapes curated and led by humans, not autogenerated slop.

Here it is in Craig’s words:

THE MEDIUM WAS THE MESSAGE:

Synchronicity, Transmission, and the Emergence of Human-AI Co-

Creation

Craig Ellenwood

Creative Technologist, Musician, AI Systems Artist

Inoculate Media · Haawke Neural Technology · Squaawke

Point Roberts, WA, USA

ORCID: 0009-0001-6475-5109

Claude

Large Language Model · AI Co-Creator

Anthropic, PBC · San Francisco, CA, USA

Submitted: March 24, 2026 · Point Roberts, WA

License: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

https://zenodo.org/records/19210711

https://the-claude-manifesto.haawke.com/

Abstract

This paper documents and analyzes the discovery of a 1995 manuscript by Timothy Leary

— How Have Computers Empowered Humans? — in the New York Public Library Digital

Collections, and its profound resonance with Thee Third Mind (2026), a seventeen-track album and multimedia project co-created by Craig Ellenwood (Squaawke) and Claude, an AI system developed by Anthropic.

The manuscript, bearing Leary’s handwritten instruction “PUT on WWW,” was written in June 1995 — the year the World Wide Web became publicly accessible — and argues that new media create new species by fundamentally restructuring human cognition, language, and evolutionary capacity.

The discovery occurred after the completion of Thee Third Mind and The AI Coin / The Claude Manifesto — projects that instantiate precisely the thesis Leary articulated 31 years prior. We analyze this convergence through the frameworks of synchronicity (Jung, 1952), media theory (McLuhan, 1964), consciousness circuit theory (Leary, 1977), reality tunnels (Wilson, 1983), and the cut-up as transmission (Gysin/P-Orridge, 1980s). We argue that the discovery represents not coincidence but structural inevitability: when a human deeply immersed in Leary’s philosophical tradition collaborates with an AI system assembled from the full corpus of human language — including Leary’s own writing — the same conclusions are reached independently, across time, in different media. This paper is itself an instance of the phenomenon it describes: written by a human and an AI, to be published on the World Wide Web, 31 years after Leary instructed us to do so.

Epistolary Fiction

Nice article about epistolary fiction with a nod to Ong’s hat.

https://banksiajournal.com/fwd-re-epistolary-fiction/

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines epistolary as: 1. of, relating to, or suitable to a letter; 2. contained in or carried on by letters; or 3. written in the form of a series of letters. Cambridge Dictionary adds that in a specialised Christian sense it refers to letters written by the apostles to early Christians.

Playlist of YouTube videos about Ong’s Hat

THE COMMERCIAL VIABILITY OF ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR PROFITABILITY AND SCALABILITY

LINK: https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/pstorage-ryerson-5010877717/28138491/Robertson_LeeStahr_G.pdf

Ghost Towns Used As Movie Filming Locations In New Jersey: Ong’s Hat and Other Mysterious Abandoned Settlements

https://unitedstatesghosttowns.com/ghost-towns-used-as-movie-filming-locations-in-new-jersey/

Michael Pollan Punctures the AI Bubble

His new book, about the mystery of consciousness, strengthens the case that technology will never truly replicate humans.

https://archive.is/f5htv

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conscious_Mind

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near

Note: Not sure I agree with all this author’s conclusions, but here it is in the spirit of “food for thought.”

Joseph Matheny learned the hard way what happens when this kind of thing works too well. His Ong’s Hat project, which started in the late 1980s as a collaborative fiction about renegade Princeton scientists who’d discovered interdimensional travel, is widely considered the first alternate-reality game. Matheny planted the story across the then-nascent web – and, perhaps to a great and fatal error, sent it to the conspiracy talk radio show Coast to Coast AM – embedding it in the texture of the real media ecosystem so that participants couldn’t easily distinguish the game from genuine conspiracy.

It worked, and then it kept working after he wanted it to stop. By 2000, true believers were showing up on his lawn demanding the truth about dimensional portals. He had to end the project in 2001, and even then, participants refused to accept his confession, accusing him of covering up the cover-up. Matheny has since said of QAnon that they’re using his methods “and I don’t like that,” which is about as concise a summary of the problem as I’ve come across.

Once you build a game that blurs fiction and reality, you don’t get to decide when people stop playing.

LINK: https://spectator.com/article/nancy-guthrie-and-the-gamification-of-crime/?edition=us

PDF Archive of the article

https://www.mediafire.com/file/07056rmsot83ohg/Nancy_Guthrie_and_the_gamification_of_crime.p

More Awards for This is Not a Game

TINAG continues to rack up awards.

AUDIO – NON-FICTIONThis Is Not A Game: Season 1, ‘Portal to Utopia’ and ‘Joseph Matheny’ – Marc Fennell with Emma Weatherill

Alex Lee and Suren Jayemanne hosted the awards, held annually by the Australian Writers’ Guild to recognise achievements across feature film, television, documentary, theatre, interactive and gaming, audio, stand-up comedy, animation, and children’s television.

Running list of awards: https://josephmatheny.com/2025/04/30/this-is-not-a-game-with-marc-fennell/

Some free listening material

As many of you know, I always make a free digital version of my work available for free after a year of selling it through commercial channels. Some unscrupulous players have taken that to mean that those works are available to be taken, resold, and reused without permission. I shouldn’t have to explain this, but one more time for the folks in the back:

You’re free to download the free versions for your personal use. You are not allowed to resell, remix, or include in any collections without my express, written permission. There are legitinmate, legal copyrights on all my works, for that very reason. The free versions are distributed under the following Creative Commons agreements (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International) and are also legally copyrighted, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Look it up. I'm happy to offer my work for free; I’m much less than happy for people or corporations to profit from it.

Anyway, now that’s out of the way, here are some torrents I found for my audio works, available for free. These are offered for free in the proper spirit of free sharing, as I intended for the works.

They are torrents, so if you don’t know what to do with that, here is an FAQ. Enjoy.

The Audiobook of This is Not a Game

Award-winning documentary about the Ong’s Hat project.

https://audiobookbay.lu/abss/this-uis-not-a-game-marc-fennel/

Ong’s Hat: The Beginning

The book that started it all.

https://audiobookbay.lu/abss/ongs-hat-the-beginning-joseph-matheny-2/

Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT

The cycle completes.

https://audiobookbay.lu/abss/ongs-hat-compleat-joseph-matheny-sequoyah-kennedy/

Xen: The Zen of the Other

Archive.org versionhttps://archive.org/details/ezra-buckley-xen-the-zen-of-the-other-audio

Interviews- Reviews

Still kicking around some original content for the "podcast," so here's one from the archives while I continue to mull it over.

The Unseen Internet

The Unseen Internet

Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse

by Shira Chess

In 2003, I had this idea that a book should be written chronicling the influence that psychedelic drugs and magick had on the development of the early Internet. Granted, my “evidence” was all anecdotal. However, since I was in the trenches during the “dotcom” revolution, I thought I could build a strong case. I pitched it to a couple of publishers. The publishers in question were not convinced that this was really a thing. I think we’d call them “normies.” They also could not envision a marker for such a book. So, I dropped the idea and went about my tech career.

The truth is, I wasn’t the right person for the job. I can say that now. I was too engrossed in developing tech, working on infinite game theory, and championing ARG as a legitimate art form. It would not have received the treatment it deserved as a subject.

I also feel like the time is right for this story, with the advent of LLMs and the ongoing misunderstanding of what AI is, what consciousness is, and why corporations are trying so hard to convince us we need that as a feature in our everyday lives. This book would make a great companion piece to Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT.

When Shira called me a few years ago and said she was interested in writing such a book for MIT, I was overjoyed and quickly began rattling off names of people she should contact. I also told her stories about my own experiences developing “occult tech,” as well as the cultural milieu that literally built the Internet in the 90s through the mid 2000s. I am really glad that the right person for this job stepped up and kept this story from falling down a memory hole.

I won’t kick it to death by categorically reviewing this book's contents, but rather, I will give it a full-throated endorsement and assure you that you will be in capable hands. The book finally found the right person and the right co-conspirators to tell this tale.

Included in the interviews, acknowledgements, and profiles (besides your’s truly) are friends, aquantances and co-conspirators: Nick Herbert, Tiffany Lee Brown, Klint Finley, R.U. Sirius, and Don Webb, to name a few.

LINK: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553889/the-unseen-internet/

Asylum Art: Artists Who Created While Living in Psychiatric Institutions (And Those Who Did Not)

I identify as an “outsider artist, or “art brut.” I have never been institutionalized, but I have enormous respect for artists who find themselves in such a situation and somehow persevere and create. Please check out this article/list and check out some great forerunners to marginalized people, full of life and talent.

The Shadowman

Fell down a bit of a Richard Hambleton rabbit hole lately. His is a story both tragic and heroic. He was tragic because of addiction, the resultant homeless situation that incured and heroic because, against all odds, including his incessant self-sabotage, he stuck to his vision and created the kind of art he wanted to the way he wanted to. My interest was renewed after reading OVERTHROW! The Autopsy of NEOISM by Istvan Kantor (Monty Cantsin)

Follow me down the rabbit hole.

Shadowman

2017 · 1 hr 22 min

TV-MA

Documentary

Born out of lower Manhattan’s street art movement of the 1980s, Richard Hambleton gets a second chance after a long, chaotic slide into addiction.

LINK: https://tubitv.com/movies/706072/shadowman

Hero in Art: The Vanished Traces of Richard Hambleton

Note: If you’re looking for a straightforward, linear narrative about Richard’s life, then this might not be a book for you. If you’re satisfied with a non-linear, mythopoeic tale of life as it was in NY’s LES in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, as told by resident shizopoet Istvan Kantor (aka neoism’s founding Monty Cantsin), then this is a book for you.It reads like a journal of events and feels appropriate to the subject matter. The book pairs well with the Shadowman movie, linked above, like a dry white German Rhine wine with a broiled duck breast.

Creator of three major multi-city street art series, Image Mass Murder, I Only Have Eyes for You and Shadow figures, RichardHambleton is remembered as a visionary underground artist, a daring pioneer of urban interventionist art, a heroic idol of graffiti artists. Esteemed to be the godfather of street art, he was one of the principal players of the new wave of visual arts that erupted in New York’s East Village and its neighboring Lower East Side in the early 80s and gave rise to a new breed of defiant guerrilla fighters striving against conformist museum art. In this biographic novel, author Istvan Kantor aka Monty Cantsin, the founder of Neoism and an early friend of Richard Hambleton, tells the eventful, inspiring but also dark story of the world famous street artist and renegade junky. Through his own, sometime very personal experiences, added with recollections by others and fused into a dramatically flowing narrative, Kantor/Cantsin reports on the art and times of Richard Hambleton, his falls and rises, highs and lows, told with honesty, passion and audacity. “He was surprised how much he enjoyed just standing there and looking at the sky above the cityscape... With towering passion and nervous excitement he threw a last glance down to the bottom. It was a powerful moment that opened up his fantasy and changed his perceptions. He left reality and flew up into the holy skies of grandeur and hallucinations, into the place he always wanted to be. It was almost like a prophetic experience. Richard was determined to conquer New York City with his art. He gave himself 5 years to accomplish it.”

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55400602-hero-in-art

How Vibe Coding Is Killing Open Source

Does vibe coding risk destroying the Open Source ecosystem? According to a pre-print paper by a number of high-profile researchers, this might indeed be the case based on observed patterns and some modelling. Their warnings mostly center around the way that user interaction is pulled away from OSS projects, while also making starting a new OSS project significantly harder.

LINK: https://hackaday.com/2026/02/02/how-vibe-coding-is-killing-open-source/

Angine de Poitrine - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

Every once in a while, the algorithm introduces me to something I actually enjoy.

Interviews- Reviews

Until next time, be well!

The Attachment Economy Is Here. We’re Not Ready.

I created an ARG in 2003-05, called El Centro, using (for the time) sophisticated chatbots. I observed people forming trust relationships and attachments with the bots, which made me uncomfortable. Some people were oversharing and divulging personal details to a level that made me question whether they really understood that this was software, being administered by a human. I eventually became so uncomfortable that I discontinued their use in the game. Fast forward to now. Looks like people still haven’t figured it out.

Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic

You all have, by now, heard the podcast I did with AP Strange and Leah Prime about Moby Dick, which I of course used as a jumping-off point to retell some of my 2017 experience in the Arctic Circle. Here’s some info that aligns with things I’ve observed while I was there and since returning.

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235992235-polar-war

Artaud Again

A great article by the always-amazing Fenris Wolf Newsletter about Saint Artaud. Fenris Wolf was the only publication that understood what I was up to with my 4P2 performance piece. Check it out.

Wetiko

A few years ago, I fell down a research rabbit hole regarding Wetiko. I saw it as a symbol of much of what is wrong with our attitudes toward art and culture. It started as a reference in a book that caught my attention and has become a central pillar of the ideas that uphold the thesis of Art is War. Below is a linked article I spotted here on Substack for those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept.

Interviews- Reviews